AUTHOR NOTES: I apologise for the delay. No real excuse apart from the fact my brain is unwilling to co-operate with it's writing counterpart at the moment. It just refused to write this chapter. One more chapter and I promise I'll pick up speed again, as like I said most of the rest of the fic is written. Thanks for sticking with this.
Wednesday 13th August 10.55am
"You want to go a séance to call ghosts forth, that we don't think are ghosts?" Gwen asked almost incredulously. Jack had been rummaging in the archives since she'd got into work less than an hour ago.
"Yes." Jack said without looking up from where he was now gathering candles from a drawer in the archives.
"Just wanted to clarify." Gwen said a little sarcastically. She knew Jack was desperate, was getting that way herself. But a séance? He was reaching ridiculous now.
"So where are we doing this séance?" Gwen asked, still watching Jack as he stuffed candles and bits of paper into a rucksack.
"In the park by the castle, where the first child disappeared, where Finn disappeared." Jack spoke quickly as he shouldered the bag, disappearing back through the tunnels towards his office.
"And what are you going to say to these "ghosts" once you've called them forth?" Gwen was being patronizing she knew, but right now she was so weary and desperate that she didn't care.
"We're going to ask them to give the children and Ianto back." Jack answered, now rummaging about in his bottom drawer for God knew what.
"Jack you don't have a religious bone in your body, nor are you gifted in any way. So how the hell is this going to work?" Gwen demanded.
"I'll have you know I'm gifted in many departments." Jack shot back at her, causing Gwen to roll her eyes, and for a moment it was almost like they were a team again, Jack coming up with crazy ideas that just might work while the rest of the team debunked them. But Gwen was the rest of the team now and it wasn't right without Owen's impossible pessimism or Tosh's twisted modifications or Ianto's sarcastic wit. It was just Gwen against Jack and Gwen had reached the point where she was done arguing, which scared her more than she was willing to admit.
She watched him leaving the office now, SUV keys in hand as he grabbed for his greatcoat, heading towards the cog door, beckoning Gwen behind him.
"You realise how ridiculous this is?" Gwen called after him.
"That's why it's going to work." Jack shot back with one of his disarming grins. Gwen huffed out a sigh, uncrossing her arms and following Jack out the car. What the hell, she thought. They had nothing left to lose.
Wednesday 13th August 11.42am
Gwen was setting up candles in a circle on the ground in Bute park. She had no idea what she was doing but Jack had told her to do it, and at a loss of anything else to do she had complied. She had suspicions that Jack was slowly unravelling though, that without Ianto he'd lost the inability to think rationally.
"Jack what are you doing?" Gwen asked, looking up from the candles to see Jack was pressing buttons on his wrist strap.
"Opening a door." Jack answered blankly.
It all suddenly sunk in then. The séance had been a ruse and Gwen felt used, cheap and cheated. She lurched to her feet, grasping blindly for his hands to stop him, but it was too late, people were shimmering into existence beside her.
"Jack what have you done?" Gwen demanded now Jack had stopped fiddling, looking up and around him.
"Called our unwelcome guests into existence." Jack answered solemnly. He didn't feel bad about lying to Gwen, when effectively he hadn't. He'd maybe stretched the truth with the word séance but he had wanted to call forth the "ghosts" he'd just done it by knocking on the rift door rather than the way Gwen had assumed.
"Jack this isn't funny anymore." Gwen said nervously, backing up so she was flush against Jack's side. He was still tapping away at buttons on his wrist strap, obliviously to Gwen's discomfort as Tosh, Owen and even her dead grandmother converged on them. There were other faces that she didn't recognise, people long dead in period clothing. Jack glanced up and caught sight of Greg Bishop, of Alice Guppy, Estelle Cole and even Alex Hopkins.
"I wasn't laughing to start with." Jack deadpanned as he watched others from his past sashaying through the trees towards them. Doctor Tilda Brennan stood shoulder to shoulder with Emily Holyrod, Charles Gaskell not far behind them. It was getting too much for Jack, too many familiar faces that haunted his dreams were now a waking nightmare.
"Who are you?" Jack called out with a confidence he didn't feel as Gwen clutched blindly for his hand.
"We are like you Jack, we are forever." A voice curled out from between Alice Guppy's lips that was not her own, it almost sounded childlike to Jack's ears.
"Why are you taking the children of Cardiff?"
"To play." The words echoed through Bute Park, curling from every translucent lip in eerie childishness.
"Jack they sound like they're just children." Gwen whispered, a terrified tone to her voice.
"Why did you take Ianto then? He's not a child." Jack called out, backing Gwen and him towards a tree without realising it, trying to stay out of the reach of the "ghosts".
They all seemed to stop in their tracks at Jack's words though, their light dimming slightly but not going out.
"We thought he could help us. He's lost like us, lost so many. Now we come to you for help Jack Harkness." All the apparitions seemed to be speaking in chorus now, which was frankly far more disturbing than having individual dead people speaking to you.
"Why should I help you when you've taken something from me?"
There was a flash of blinding light that caused Jack to turn away, squinting slightly as he felt Gwen bury her head in his left shoulder. When the light dimmed, all that was left behind was the single form of a small blue-eyed boy staring up at Jack and Gwen with a lost look in his eyes.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose him as well. I just wanted to go home." The boy admitted sadly, and there were tears in his eyes as he gazed up at Gwen and Jack who seemed to have lost their fear somewhat.
"Go home?" Gwen asked, straightening herself slightly, but still refusing to let go of Jack.
"It was prophesised that we'd go through the door into another world when the darkness descended on us. We did, but I let go and now I can't find my way home or the Promised Land." The boy confessed, rubbing at his bloodshot his eyes.
Jack just stood staring at the little boy. He couldn't conceivable believe that this was the one who had taken all those children, the one who'd taken Ianto, who'd caused thousands of families heartache and grief all because he was a little boy lost; let go of someone's hand.
"Jack?" Gwen was looking at him as tears brimmed in his eyes.
"What's your name?" Jack almost barked.
"Name?" The boy looked confused for a moment.
"Yeah, what do your parents call you?" Jack prompted.
The boy shrugged which made Jack slightly wary of him, but he suddenly realised this was his only chance to get those children back. To get Ianto back.
"We can help you find your way home. But you have to give us back what we've lost. You can't just take all those children."
"I didn't take them. They came willingly, they wanted to play."
"You tricked them with images of their dead family. That's not willing, that's hope. They're lost like you now." Jack replied, his voice oddly calm as he knelt down so he was at eyelevel with the small boy. He almost felt like he was talking to Finn.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for them to get lost too. If I find them you'll take me home?" The boy looked up hopefully at Jack.
"I can't take you home." Jack said apologetically. The boys face fell.
"But we can send you there. Where is home? Do you have co-ordinates?"
The boy shook his head.
"Do you know when you got lost?" Gwen piped up from behind Jack. Jack turned to look at her questioningly.
"If we know when he got lost we can cross reference if with rift spikes and maybe pinpoint when and where that was. Open a door again maybe?" Gwen suggested. Jack nodded before he was turning back to the boy.
"It was just before I found the first one. I was holding onto my Mothers hand and the next thing I knew I was holding on to him."
"Finn." Jack let the boys name pass his lips.
"Do you know where that boy is now?" Jack asked, a hint of desperation creeping into his voice. He watched forlornly as the boy shook his head sadly from side to side.
"Ok." Jack rallied himself somewhat.
"You go and find all those children and Ianto for me and I promise you that me and Gwen will set you on the right way home." Jack urged. He watched, waiting for the boy's reaction, catching those startling blue eyes that reminded him so painfully of Ianto. He saw a flash of something in those blue depths, something so much older.
"They could be anywhere, anytime, anyplace."
Jack felt his stomach sink down into his boots again at those words.
"But I will find them for you Jack Harkness because you found me." The little boy smiled at Jack before there was another flash of bright light, blinding both Jack and Gwen.
When Jack opened his eyes it was pitch black, and certainly no longer Wednesday morning.
"What the?" Jack frowned, pulling himself to his feet and looking around. The candles that Gwen had set burning had burnt themselves out.
"What time is it?" Jack asked.
"My watch has stopped." Gwen complained. Jack glanced down at his own watch, but like Gwen's it had frozen at 11.42am. Jack saw a drunken group of girls stumbling along the path at the edge of the park and called out to them.
"Excuse me ladies!" Jack called, jogging over towards them.
"Wouldn't happen to have the time on you would you?" Jack asked politely, flashing them one of his patented Harkness grins.
"'Bout 2." The one nearest to him slurred, her friend almost dropping most of her chips as she fumbled about in her handbag for her phone.
"Seventeen minutes past two." The girl proclaimed with some triumph before plopping the phone back in her bag.
"Bloody 'ell. Me Mam's gonna kill me." A third girl piped up, dragging her friends further into the park, tottering on high heels through mud to get to their destination.
"Have we just lost a day Jack?" Gwen asked from behind Jack.
"Looks like." Jack commented a frown on his features as he contemplated whom the little boy had been. Jack was inclined to believe he was telling the truth, he had seemed genuine enough. The sour fact was though that Jack didn't have any other choice but to believe him since he had no other way of getting the children or Ianto back.
"Shit. Ten missed calls from Rhys." Gwen grumbled beside him.
"Come on, lets work out how we're going to get that little boy home and hope he manages to find ours and bring him home." Jack encouraged, a hand on Gwen's elbow, steering her towards the SUV as she called Rhys back.
Thursday 14th August 2.19am
Rhys was going spare. He hadn't heard from Gwen all day and every time he'd called her, her phone had been switched off. He'd been down to the tourist office in the Plass and hammered on the door for a good ten minutes but to no avail. He'd even tried jumping up and down on that paving stone of theirs a couple of times, grateful that no one could see him. He was now down at the police station waiting for PC Andy Davidson to come to the front desk, hoping he had heard something.
That was when Rhys' phone started ringing. He had it out in a flash, noticing Gwen's name before he was yelling.
"Where the bloody hell have you been? I've been worried sick thinking you'd gone as well Gwen." Rhys ranted, moving away form the front desk slightly as he noticed Andy approaching.
"No I will not bloody calm down Gwen! Where've you been? I've been all round Cardiff looking for you, not a sign of you anywhere, no one's seen you. I'm at the police station about to report you as missing." Rhys said slightly hysterically, not missing Andy Davidson rolling his eyes at him out of the corner of his field of vision.
"What do you mean you don't know where you've been?" Rhys asked, confused, his voice calming slightly. Rhys was silent as she listened to Gwen giving him a half arsed explanation.
"Are you coming home now then?" Rhys asked, trying to sound authoritive.
"Right I'm coming over to you then." Rhys replied hanging up and heading back out the front door of the police station before Gwen even had a chance to draw breath.
"Oi!" Andy called after him, but not making a move to follow.
"I could have you done for wasting police time!" Andy called after him, but Rhys was already well out of earshot. Andy sighed, rolling his eyes before he was trudging back up the stairs to get himself a coffee before he went back out of the streets.
